If I had one wish today it would be that I'd never told my boss my name.  Oh my god.  She's wearing it out.  World Peace is just gonna hafta wait until tomorrow. 

Names.  A necessary Evil, right?  I mean, how else is your mother going to get your attention when your hands about to slip into the cookie jar?  Middle names are for really, super-serious offenses. Some people are so bad they have to have two middle names!  It's like a DEFCON password or something only your mother knows.

I'm doing this writing workshop Tuesday nights, and one of the women — a lovely wise Latina (for real) — made sure to take everyone's name down.  There are two Mikes — Michaels, whatever — in the group, and she was very insistent that I be either one or the other — either Mike or Michael.  The truth is, I don't care.  I answer to all sorts of things, all depending on who's calling.  In my mind I'm not a Mike or a Michael, I am the I am, y'know?



But I understand people have to call you something, and Mike is better than some other things I've been called down the years.  But as for Mike and Michael, let's not split hairs. 

Well, she was adamant that I choose.  Why?  Because she has one of these wonderful Spanish double names — like María Luisa (although not María Luisa) — and she doesn't go by just the one or the other, but both, and more power to her.  Why choose between Ecstasy and Viagra when you can do both? (It's called "sextasy" — how cool is that?)  Plus it's critical information.  It's like there's a difference between a Pontiac Astre and a Pontiac Fiero. Why deny it? There's a difference between plain old Tylenol and Tylenol P.M.

Personally, I've always felt that Mike was sufficient.  It's not like Michael is pretentious, but I'm not going to go to the mattresses for it.  It just doesn't mean that much to me.  I've even yielded to Mikey on occasion.  Usually it starts as a joke, but with one or two friends it stuck.  The unspoken rule is that if you're going to call me Mikey, I'm going to tack a "y" onto the end of whatever your name is and call you that.  It's only fair.

For my Hungarian friends "Mikey" is a cute kind of Hungarianization of Mike.  There is a Hungarian version of my name — Mihaly — for which the diminutive is Misi (pronounced "meeshee") — and I feel like they're doing me a big favor by just tacking on the diminutive "i" to the end of the anglicized form.

I sometimes wish I had a cool nickname, but I don't.  Occasionally back in college someone would try to tack one on me, but they never stuck.  I tried to slip one in a time or two, but it was always unconvincing.  You know, I'm just not a Mongoose.  And Captain Starfag was a big, big mistake, much better forgotten.

Of course nowadays there's an algorithm for it.  You can go to a site on the internet (like this one), and it'll spew out a bunch of nicknames for you in three seconds flat.  I typed in "Mike," and here's what I got:

mike
mickey
mickie
m2
m unit
jimbo
mieky
shmike
the mick
miko
d-bag
miker
mikesause
booger
slim
mikeymak
cock ass dick
chode 
mikey
lady of the chase
jigga man
mitchesbitches
dynamike
stupid ike
mikey likey
michael
fag master 2000

I'm leaning toward "Mikey Likey," "Lady of the chase," or "Fag master 2000" — you think it's too something? 

How about a fairy name?  Mine is "Columbine Icefly"!

But you know what?  No.  I actually kinda like Mike as a nickname for Mike.  Really, Mike is fine.  Although once in a while you end up in a room full of them and no one knows who anyone's talking to.  Mikes are used to it, though, and we tend to be pretty laid back about it.

There are four in our office that I know of, but one is Vietnamese and his real name is Long, which means Dragon.  Which is totally cool.  I'm like, dude, if you don't want to go by Long, why not go by Dragon?  But he's really not a Dragon, either, so Mike works.  Mike is kind of like naming someone "[Name]".  

I had an annoying name-related episode just last night.  I quit the internet hook-up scene cold turkey about two months ago, but apparently before I did I gave this very hot Latin guy — let's call him Gabriel — my email address.  He was not yet in town and was lining up some action for when he arrived.  I was like, sure, drop me a line. I then forgot about it.  Poof!  Like that. As you do.

Fast-forward to a couple days ago.  I get this email with his cell number.  I texted him.  I'm like: "Hola Gabriel – it’s Mike from gaydar, or whatever, and blab la bla." Like you do.  After several hours I get:  "hi! Is your username such and such? Sorry, there’s a few mikes on there..:-)"

Well, I didn't text him back.  I mean, there may or may not be a few of us on the site, in which case one's as good as another, but how many did you give your number to last night?  It's not that I care about how many Mikes you're seeing, it's that I don't want to have to keep having to identify which one I am, unless it's in the pig pile. 

Just an ordinary day in the life of a Mike, really.  And to be honest I'd rather be labeled that than some designer knock-off type name like Ethan or Zachary or Caleb.  Although I'm thinking Dragon has a nice ring to it...